Dutch and British wholesale gas prices rose to nearly 5% on Wednesday afternoon on confirmation of colder forecasts, ongoing outages in Norway and concerns about storage re-filling in the summer.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was up 2.16 euros at 50.38 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $15.35 mmBtu, by 1440 GMT, after briefly hitting 50.70 euros/MWh earlier, LSEG data showed.

Prices rose due to Norwegian pipeline gas outages, impacting stockpiles currently at 55.4% full, compared to 72% last year, Ole S Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxobank, said on X.

The Dutch day-ahead contract (TRNLTTFD1) was up 2.50 euros at 50.40 euros/MWh.

In Britain, the day-ahead contract (TRGBNBPD1) rose by 6.50 pence to 128.70 p/therm. The front-month contract (TRGBNBPMc1) gained 5.99 pence at 127.50p/therm.

The latest weather models also confirmed that the first half of February will likely be cold and dry, LSEG meteorologist Georg Muller said.

Outages at Norway’s Gullfaks, Troll and Aasgard fields are expected to limit supply to continental Europe.

Norwegian natural gas nominations to Europe totalled 313 million cubic metres (mcm) on Wednesday, down 5 mcm day on day, although flows to Britain gained 5 mcm, LSEG data showed.

The speed of withdrawals from European gas storage sites has been slowed by milder, windier weather, but is expected to accelerate in the coming days, LSEG analysts said.

The volume of gas in Ukraine’s storage facilities has fallen to near the critical 10% mark and the country urgently needs to start importing significant amounts to meet its needs, the former head of the transit operator warned on Wednesday.

In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract was up 2.44 euros at 82.70 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters